Marines Test Women for Infantry Roles

A course to train for Marine Corps ground combat units that began on Thursday was the latest effort to incorporate women, but the two women (and 12 men) were eliminated.

Christopher Gregory / The New York Times

By JAMES DAO

March 29, 2013

QUANTICO, Va. — A group of Marine second lieutenants, all men, stood before the ropes on an obstacle course. They looked exhausted, though the day was far from done. One by one, they took their shots at scaling the line. One by one, most of them dropped short of the top. They were already three hours behind the front-runners in their class.

Behind them, two more Marines, both women, prepared to start the course. One, a former enlisted Marine who was shivering in the 40-degree breeze, tried repeatedly to surmount the first bar, but failed. The second, a recent Naval Academy graduate, did better, meticulously, sometimes ingeniously, working her way through many of the obstacles.

But as she was determinedly attempting the ropes, a captain walked briskly up to deliver bad news: Neither woman had met a time limit. Silently, they shouldered their packs and trudged into the woods, their chances of becoming the first women to complete the Marine Corps’ demanding Infantry Officer Course summarily ended on its arduous first day on Thursday. (Twelve of the 108 men also were dropped that day.)

And that closed the latest chapter in the effort to integrate women into Marine Corps ground combat units, a sweeping change ordered by the former secretary of defense, Leon E. Panetta, in January when he lifted a 1994 ban on women serving in direct combat.

The commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos, has said he is confident that women can begin joining some combat jobs, including in tank and artillery units, by early next year. But with infantry — the foot warriors who since ancient times have been called upon to march across hills and deserts, carry heavy weight and bear the brunt of fighting and death — the corps is proceeding with much caution.

General Amos has said he will use the Infantry Officer Course to study how women handle the rigors of infantry training, hoping to observe 92 volunteers by 2016, when the corps must make recommendations on whether women can join the infantry. (Reaching 92 may be hard, however: the corps produces only 156 female officers a year, and only about one in 10 have volunteered to attend the course, so far, though Marine Corps officials say they expect the number to rise.)

Last fall, the first two female volunteers failed to complete the course. One, a distance runner, was dropped on the first day, known as the Combat Endurance Test. The second, a soccer player, endured for over a week before instructors pulled her out because of a stress fracture in her foot. Both are now training for non-infantry jobs.

In Quantico, concerns run deep among some staff members that pressure to accommodate women will lead to a softening of the Marine Corps’ tough standards. Col. Todd S. Desgrosseilliers, commander of the Basic School, which includes the Infantry Officer School and the Basic Officer Course, said that would not happen.

“They are gender-neutral now,” he said of the standards. “They aren’t hard to be hard. These are the things they need to be able to do to be infantry officers.”

The 86-day Infantry Officer Course, which was started in 1977 by Vietnam combat veterans, is viewed with special reverence within the corps, the most infantry-centric of the armed services. Though its students tend to be top performers in basic officer training, more than one in five are dropped during the infantry course. Some are allowed to try again, but most find other jobs in the corps.

Outside an auditorium where new students receive their initial briefing, a quote attributed to Thucydides, the Greek historian and Athenian general, summarizes the program’s mantra: “He is best who is trained in the severest school.”

It all begins with the Combat Endurance Test, a slog through rolling forests that requires physical strength, endurance, military knowledge and willpower. Students must swim, assemble weapons from jumbled parts, navigate from point to point and carry weight over distances.

The Infantry Officer Course, which is 86 days long, is viewed with special reverence within the corps, the most infantry-centric of the armed services.

Christopher Gregory / The New York Times

But more than anything, the event is intended to challenge a newly minted lieutenant’s ability to make decisions under sustained duress. Uncertainty and disorientation are prime features: students do not know their tasks beforehand, and are not told how long they will be given for each. Pacing oneself, thus, is virtually impossible.

When Thursday’s event was over, one of the instructors, a towering infantry captain with a booming voice, asked the weary Marines: “Are we done yet?” No one answered because no one knew. “We are done,” he reassured them.

“Young Marines need a platoon commander who can manage uncertainty,” said Maj. Scott Cuomo, the school director. “Because that is what combat is like.”

Students are warned to not disclose anything about the test, lest future students get an easier ride. The New York Times was allowed to observe the first day under the condition that many details not be described or photographed.

Colonel Desgrosseilliers said he is confident that women will eventually pass the course. (Even if some do, they will not automatically become infantry officers, until the corps makes a final recommendation on opening the infantry to women.)

But for that to happen, he said, they will need to start preparing in college or high school, as many men do. He has begun urging the Naval Academy and reserve officer training programs to help potential female candidates strengthen their upper bodies, do more hiking carrying weight and study infantry history.

Upper body strength was clearly a factor on Thursday, as one of the women struggled to perform one part of the test requiring arm strength. “Tracking you got zero,” the instructor said when she finished. “Yes sir,” she replied, then jogged off to her next task.

A former college linebacker, despite his 5-foot-8 frame, Major Cuomo is a firm believer that Marines who played contact sports do best in the infantry — partly because they must endure, and deliver, punishment, and partly because war can include hand-to-hand combat. He is fond of calling their work “the last 600 yards of diplomacy.”

“While certain things that occur at Infantry Office Course replicate combat, the worst days of infantry combat are much, much worse,” said the major, a veteran of fierce fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He also does not soft-pedal the central mission of the corps. “Almost all of the killing in the Marine Corps will be done by your men,” he told the 96 Marines who survived the Combat Endurance Test.

To make clear the seriousness of their charge, the major noted that six students from the previous officer class, who had graduated just two days before, were already leading platoons at a mountain warfare school. In years past, those platoons would have almost certainly deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan within months.

The major then walked next door to a classroom where the 12 male and two female lieutenants who had failed the test sat quietly nursing sore feet and, perhaps, bruised egos. “I’m proud of you for having the courage to just try,” he told them. “This isn’t about being an infantry officer. It’s about being a Marine.”

Then the Marines filed out to find showers, food and their beds. For the 96 others, Friday awaited. Only 85 days left.